Obama Campaign To Release 17-Minute, Guggenheim-Directed Documentary On His First Term

It pays to have friends in the movie business.

On a conference call Wednesday, top officials with the Obama campaign announced that they would be releasing a 17-minute documentary on the president's first term in office. The film was directed by Davis Guggenheim, the man who put together Al Gore's much acclaimed "An Inconvenient Truth."

The Obama documentary won't appear as a television ad, along the lines of the 30-minute Obama infomercial the 2008 campaign released in the closing weeks of that election. But beyond that, the details of its release were left vague.

The decision to even make the movie is notable, showing that the Obama team feels a need to re-introduce the president to voters, whose perception of his first years in office has obviously been colored by his critics.